Marxist view of education sociologists Flashcards
Althusser (1971)
How to keep the bourgeoisie in power :
• The repressive state apparatuses (RSA) = maintain the rule of the bourgeoisie by force or the threat of it. Includes police , courts and army.
• The ideological state apparatuses (ISA) = maintain the rule of the bourgeoise by controlling people’s ideas , values and beliefs . Includes religion , media and education system
- Education reproduces class inequality by transmitting it from generation to generation.
- Education legitimises class inequalities by producing ideologies and if they accept these ideologies , they’re less likely to challenge or threaten capitalism
What does Willis study show
- Although pupils may resist indoctrination , their counter school cultures may prepare them fir unskilled labour
- Education is reproducing and legitimating class inequality .
- It ensures working class pupils are slotted into and learn ti accept jobs that are poorly paid and alienating
Study of 12 Working class boys - lads’ counter culture
• Lads form a distinct counter- culture opposed to the school. - Lads find school boring and meaningless and flout its rules and values.
- Similarity between the lads’ anti school counter culture and the culture of male manual workers.
what’s an evaluation for bowles and gintis
Postmodernists
- Evaluates Bowles and Gintis’ correspondence principle
- Today’s economy requires schools to produce very different kids of labour force from the one described by Marxists.
- Education now reproduces diversity not inequality
• Deterministic , they assume that pupils have no free will and passively accept indoctrination which fails to explain why many pupils reject schools values
how do postmodernists Morrow and Torres evaluate marxism
Criticise Marxist for taking a “class first” approach that sees class as the key inequality and ignores all other kinds.
- Society is now more diverse and non class inequalities (gender , ethnicity ) as equally important
Bowles and Gintis - Correspondence principle and the hidden curriculum
- close parallels between schooling and work in capitalist society
- Hierarchies in school and work place
- this is known as correspondence principle
- Correspondence principle operates through hidden curriculum
- in this way schooling prepares working class pupils for their role as exploited workers of the future
how does the new right evaluate marxism
argues marxists fail to recognise that some individuals are more intelligent than others
what does Phil Cohen argue
youth training schemes serve capitalism by teaching young workers not genuine job skills but rather the attitude and values needed in a subordinate labour force . Lowers aspirations so that they will accept low paid work
Bowles and Gintis - myth of meritocracy
- Rejects idea that everyone has equal opportunity to achieve and those who gain the highest rewards deserve them
-justifies the privileges of higher classes , making it seem that they gained them through succeeding in fair competition at school - helps persuade working class to accept inequality as legitimate
How does Mcrobbie feminist evaluate willis study
Females are largely absent
what does Bourdieu argue
Culture capital :
education and economical capital :
- middle class children are better equipped to meet demands of the skl curriculum .
- Wealthier families can use economic capital to send their kids to private schools and paying extra tuition
- “ select by mortgage “ - more likely to afford a house in the catchment area of a school that is highly placed in the exam league tables
what does Sullivan argue
used questionnaires to conduct a survey of 465 pupils in 4 schools .
assessed their culture capital :
- those who read complex fiction and watched Tv documentaries developed a greater culture knowledge , greater cultural capital
- More likely to be middle class
- Greater resources and aspirations of middle class families explain remainder of class gap in achievement
How can Willis study evaluate bowles and gintis view on hidden curriculum
Lads rejected hidden curriculum
how can you evaluate althusser
Interactionist - deterministic + arguing that working class pupils passively accept everything they’re taught
- new right murray agrees and said shared cultures is necessary so society can operate
OTO : critical race theorists ( coard) - shared culture taught by schools is not a culture of everyone , agreeing with marxists
- culture taught by schools is ethnocentric
- agree with marxists that education devalues some cultures but it’s more prioritised on the basis of race
